


Yours and Mine

by justanothersong



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Eventual Smut, F/M, Female Reader, Mild Angst, Mildly Dubious Consent, Reader-Insert, Smut, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were a teenager when they took you. You had no idea how long you had been there when they brought him in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reader is described as a teenager but considered to be of-age; tagged as mild dubcon due to circumstance, no actual noncon.

You were a teenager when they took you. You’d committed the great offense of being the daughter of a foreign diplomat who had fallen on the wrong side of a violent military coup. They had taken everything of value from your home and killed the security team that your parents had in place; they had taken you as well, and you’re not sure if you were better off for having survived it.

The room they put you in was small, with little more than a thin mattress on a stainless steel frame pushed lengthwise against the wall, with a flat pillow and a scratchy grey blanket thrown haphazardly on top. The lighting was dim and the room was cool, the walls padded most likely for sound, and the single door was made of thick steel with only a small opening through which they passed food. There was a small arched doorway that led to a tiled room with a toilet and a sink; there was no door, simply an arch that led inside, and no light in the little closet-sized washroom.

It was difficult to gauge the passage of time. You slept or daydreamed most of the time; you tried to ask for books or paper, anything to make it drag a little less, but your captors didn’t speak your language and only grunted at you when they passed food or water through the slot in the door. They lowered the lights when they wanted you to sleep, but you couldn’t be sure it was nighttime or even that a full day had passed. Even meals were irregular, making it possible to mark out the days. 

Sometimes you felt like you were losing your grip on reality, endless days flowing one into another without any stop or distraction.

You had no idea how long you had been there when they brought him in.

 

You shrunk to the corner, huddled on the floor. There had been vague threatening mutterings in words you didn’t know each time you took your meal from the door slot, for several days now. This, you thought, must have been what they were talking about.

He was enormous, or seemed that way to you from where you cowered on the floor, tall and broad of shoulder, and just standing there as they closed the door behind him. He was dressed in almost all black -- tactical gear, you recognized, from the days at your family’s home before the coup began. There had been inklings it was coming, and the suited security guards that had dogged your every step had suddenly become soldiers dressed in just such gear and carrying huge frightening firearms.

He had no weapons you could see, but you suspect his left arm could be weapon enough: it was gleaming metal, bright and dangerous, and when he turned towards you, you could see a red star on the shoulder. 

“Please don’t hurt me,” you said suddenly, voice small and wavering. The words had come unbidden and left your lips without your permission. 

The soldier -- for clearly that is what he was, some kind of soldier -- cocked his head and regarded you with some confusion, but he didn’t speak, not yet. You got a better look at his face then, at least what of it that you could see, with a black mask obscuring nearly all but his eyes. The eyes, though, those draw your attention. There is little malice there but puzzlement seems to fill them, eyes that are bright and blue and intelligent in spite of the uncertainty of the situation. They are framed by something dark, smudged eye-black like you’d seen football players wear you suspect, but surrounding them completely. 

His hair is dark brown and unkempt, longer than you’d ever seen a soldier wearing and falling around his face. He took a step towards you and you shrunk back even further when he speaks, posing a question in the same language your captors had been speaking.

“I don’t understand,” you said, voice still shaking.

He tilts his head again and his eyes seem to wander over your face; it’s clear he’s considering something. You feel wild panic rise in your chest when he raises the metal arm but he doesn’t reach for you; he goes instead to the half-mask covering his nose and mouth, and pulls it away.

“Who are you?” he asks, in perfect English.

You’re shaking by then. “No one,” you whispered back, and he seemed satisfied by your answer.

He sits down on the cot, and begins to wait.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to change the title. Was never too attached to the first one.

He sits for hours. You know he’s waiting for something, because his gaze remains trained on the door. He never relaxes, and he doesn’t speak to you at all. There are no other sounds in the room until later, when the slot on the door opens and this time two trays of food are pushed through instead of one.

“Girl, take red tray,” a heavily accented voice advises through the slot before it snaps shut again. The soldier seems puzzled but says nothing and doesn’t move. He watches you rise from your corner and retrieve the red tray, the other plastic tray laden with bland food and water sitting untouched; it was green.

You’ve gotten used to the food. It’s not inedible but it’s not appetizing either, usually something thick and heavy with little meat and water or occasionally milk. They retrieve the empty trays later, calling for you to pass them back through the slot in the door. This time, however, something is different. In the corner of your tray is a small round blue pill. You try to be sly and toss it away under the bed without notice, but the soldier sees you. He doesn’t speak, and goes back to staring at the door.

“You take pill?” the voice asks when returning for your tray. You lie and say you did; the soldier says nothing. He didn’t eat any of his meal.

 

Four more meal-times pass before the soldier deigns to eat. When they come to collect the trays he stands, and speaks to the the voices beyond the slot. It’s a question, but you can’t understand him; you’ve begun to think the language is Russian, or at least something from eastern Europe. You wonder if you’re in Europe now, or somewhere else entirely.

The voice tells him simply, “You wait”, so he does.

 

You’re not sure how many days pass before you start to talk. You can’t stand it anymore; there’s another warm body in the room with you, as captive as you are; you need to talk, to make noise, to use your voice again. He seems to ignore you at first and never responds, but eventually you can see that he is listening.

You tell him about your family, about where you grew up. You tell him about what you want to do with your life, and you refuse to speak as though it has become an impossibility. You speak of your life to come with a certainty that belies what you feel. 

You ask him one day, “Who are you?”

The small smile that comes to his face is bitter and haunted. “No one,” he tells you. You don’t ask again.

 

He is gone one day when you wake; they brought the lights up and drew you out of slumber and when you open your eyes, the soldier is no longer there. For a moment you think you imagined him entirely, until you spy the small pile of little blue pills you have accumulated beneath the bed that had heralded his arrival. You flush them down the toilet, and you wait.

The time passes more slowly than it had before. The fear and anxiety begin clawing at you again, the room all at once too small and too large and empty. You had thought it was bad before, but having had someone there to keep you company and then losing them without warning has made it all the worse.

You feel as though you’ll lose your mind if you’re left alone much longer.

 

There is more activity in the space beyond your door now, and you sit beside it, leaned against the wall, and strain to hear what you can through the little slot, even with its trap shut tight. There are voices, mostly speaking in what you are now sure is Russian, but occasionally the footsteps are lighter and you hear a nasally voice speaking in more familiar tones.

“I don’t know that having this girl is a good idea,” the voice counsels its unseen companion. “We have to be very careful.”

A voice responds in Russian and the nasal-toned English speaker sighs in irritation.

“Is good for asset,” a more heavily accented voice counters, and you recognize it as the Russian speaker, most likely repeating himself for the other man’s benefit. “Keep him in line, until chair is repaired. Creature comforts, yes?”

“How long is it going to take?” the English speaker asks, and you can’t hear anymore as they move on past your door. 

You think you understand now, at least a little. When your meal tray comes, you swallow the little blue pill.

 

You aren’t sure how many days have gone by when they push him back through the door, bolting it behind him. He stands and stares at you for a long moment, a sense of wonderment on his face as though he is surprised to find you there.

“You’re real,” he says, voice thick with confusion. You don’t know how to respond. You feel the same way, surprised that it wasn’t some terrible trick of your own mind, imagining your stalwart soldier there to keep you company, keep you sane.

You just nod, and he sits down beside you and says nothing more.

 

You fall into a routine, such as it is. They take him away sometimes, and when he’s there he still doesn’t talk much, but you do. Sometimes it seems you can’t stop. He seems to change sometimes, loosen up a little, but then they take him and it’s like starting all over again when he returns.

He doesn’t tell you what happens when he leaves, but you have an idea or two about it. One night -- it must be night, because they had dimmed the lights again -- you hear them coming to take him. He begins to move grudgingly; it had taken time but he had begun sharing the cot with you, letting you press back against the wall and curling against you in an almost protective manner. You find that you sleep better when he’s there.

As he goes to stand, you reach out and grab him by the hand, the one still made of flesh and bone, and he pauses, looking down at you questioningly. Without thinking you pull his hand to your lips and kiss his knuckles, asking him to be careful before letting it go.

He’s still staring at you when they come in, and he struggles them as they pull him out the door. 

It wouldn’t be the last time you kiss him goodbye.

 

There was a time he was gone so long, you thought you would never see him again. Days passed much the same as they always did, slowly and without any diversion, and you fall into the old trap of wondering if any of it is real before he is returned to you.

You had gotten to the point that you rarely moved from the small cot at all when he finally returned, shuffled in quickly and the door barred behind him. He didn’t speak, but after a long moment he sat beside you. He pulled something from his sleeve and pressed it into your hand. It was soft and cool, partially crushed but still lovely: a white gardenia blossom. You pressed it between the mattress and the steel frame to dry, determined to take it with you should you ever get out of this place.

Once it was safely tucked away, you took his hand in your own. He didn’t pull away.


	3. Chapter 3

It happens for the first time not long after that. He was back again after a long absence and you couldn’t help yourself, too glad to have him back, too starved of human companionship and touch to stop from reaching out. He sits down on the bed beside where you had lain sleeping, and before you even have time to consider it, you find yourself scrambling to sit in his lap and look into his eyes.

When you kiss him, he seems startled, and shakes his head, even as his hands fall to your waist, too slim now after your long captivity. You lean up to press your lips to his again and he doesn’t pull away, returning the kiss with an eagerness you hadn’t been sure to expect and a heat that you had hoped for. When you come up for air, he shakes his head again.

“Young,” he croaks out, voice rough and lips already red and plush from your own. “Too young.”

You shake your head in response, reaching up a tentative hand to push his dark hair away from those brilliant blue eyes, running a hand down his stubble-rough cheek.

“Old enough,” you reply, and it seems to be all he needs to hear.

 

Over your months of captivity, those who held you had on occasion given you fresh clothing to wear, typically nothing more than an oversized t-shirt; it’s what you are wearing then, and he pulls it over your head with a sudden, easy movement, tossing it to the floor.

His eyes drink you in but you don’t feel exposed; you feel something else entirely, a warm bubbling in your chest that brings a hitch to your breath and a tingle to your skin. Your soldier’s hands drift up from your waist and up your back, and you shiver at the sensation of hot flesh and cool metal moving in perfect synchronicity. 

You move to kiss him again and he meets you halfway, nipping at you until you gasp and part your lips. He deepens the kiss and you can’t help the moan that escapes you, swallowed back and echoed with a low growl in return. Any reservations he might have had have disappeared and he was fully yours, touching and kissing and begging you to do the same. There was no way you could deny him anything.

Your hands were shaking when you reached for his belt but he covered them with his own and guided your movements, not forcing but steadying your grip. He allows you to move at your pace, letting his hands drift back to your waist, then up to caress your breasts and draw soft whimpering gasps from you that you hadn’t even known you could make. 

His hands are unnervingly gently when he lifts your hips, letting you move at your own leisure to slide down against him. The sensation took your breath away, the fullness and pressure more than you could have imagined. He slipped his flesh hand between you, reaching to ease the way by stroking the hot button of nerves at your core until those same gasps begin tumbling from your lips again and you were moving your hips without thinking, the rapid rise and fall of your body against his making him pant and lean to press his forehead against your own.

The floodgates seemed to open then; your stoic soldier began to speak.

“Gonna take care of you, babydoll,” he rumbled against your lips. “Gonna make you feel so good, baby. Take care of you.”

You felt it building, low and tight, your breath coming faster and you chest heaving. Your back bowed as you cried out, and your soldier leaned further into you, placing wet, open-mouthed kisses on your breasts before circling one rosy nipple with his lips and drawing hard against it. That was enough to push you over the edge, your body tensing with each wave of pleasure crashing over you while you gripped tight to his shoulders, wishing for just a moment that you had a name to cry out.

You feel him tumble after you, gripping you even closer as your movements stuttered and he cried out against your skin. You were flying, nothing so perfect in the world as feeling your soldier against you, with you, inside of you. Another wave of bliss hits you, the world falling away and leaving nothing but the two of you together, not in a cell, not in any sort of danger, just you and your soldier together in one perfect moment.

You are still catching your breath when he rolls you back onto the thin mattress. He pulls the blanket up to cover you both and curls himself around you, hand splayed possessively on your bare hip beneath the blanket.

“Take care of you,” he whispers, pulling you closer.

 

After that, the physical affection you shared with your soldier became a near constant. Sometimes gentle, like the first time; he’d lay you out on the bed and not stop until your toes were curling and you were biting your lip to keep from screaming. 

They didn’t take him away as often, but when they did, he’d come back different; a little rougher, a little hard. He pick you up and press you against the wall, tearing at your clothes and growling against your skin. You’d give it back just as brutally, scratching your nails down his back and pulling at his hair. He’d bite at your lips and groan your name, always reminding you who you belonged to.

“Mine,” he’d snarl, and you’d readily agree.

Afterwards, when he was placated, when the roughness of the world beyond your cell door had worn away, he’d be all tender touches and soft kisses. You’d remind him then that he was yours just the same, whispering it into his ear: “Mine. My soldier”.

 

There was a long stretch where the two of you are left alone together, nary a midnight snatching of the soldier from the bed you shared. He had begun talking more some time ago, but it was still only bits and pieces of conversation, nothing really concrete. He never told you his name, and you’d begun to suspect he wasn’t sure of it himself.. 

Even without many words passed between the two of you, there was a familiarity there of body and spirit that had grown exponentially over time. He held you close while you slept and sat beside you when you took your meals; when there was anything on your trays that looked fresh, like fruit or salad greens instead of the typical canned slop they had been feeding you, he would shift his onto your plate without a word. You tried to argue the point only once, but he had simply shaken his head and nudged the small apple he had placed on your tray towards you with one gleaming metal finger.

The closeness of the room and the constant boredom would often get to both of you. Your soldier -- because that is how you thought of him, not just the soldier, but yours -- would often pace the room or drop to the floor and do push-ups or sit-ups to keep himself busy. You’d begun to do the same, to pass the time.

One day, on a whim, you pushed yourself into a handstand against one of the walls. He had been sitting on the bed and looked up at you curiously; viewing the room upside from your vantage, you pulled a silly face at him and were nearly startled out of position by the sudden laugh and full grin it drew out. Your soldier, you realized, was changing.

 

They returned him to you once more after that. It was only for a few hours and when he came back, you could smell the freshness of summer on his skin. You were never entirely sure where they were taking him -- sure, you had your ideas, but nothing was ever concrete -- but now you knew that was you had suspected was true. He was leaving this place, your little prison. He was going outside. You couldn’t believe that he kept allowing himself to be returned.

You tried to tell him to run. To go for help. To save himself. He refused, silently shaking his head every time you’d try and whisper a plan into his ear.

It frustrated you, drove you crazy; you could have freedom again, a life… a life, perhaps, with your soldier, because the idea of him leaving your side for good was abhorrent to you.

You could be free, forever.

And then, as he refused yet again, insisted it wasn’t possible, you understood.

“It’s because of me,” you said. “You come back because of me. They’ll hurt me, if you don’t do what they say.”

He didn’t answer, but you could see it in his eyes.

You had seen the way he changed, the way he opened to you. He spoke, smiled at you, touched you with such tenderness that it could make you shake and shiver. Whatever your captors had done to him, whatever it was that had erased his name, it was fading.

They were using you to control him. 

When they dimmed the lights and you settled to sleep, you couldn’t help the way you wept in his arms. He held you close and whispered what words of comfort he could.


	4. Chapter 4

The next time they took him, you knew something was wrong. Too many of them came this time, and he fought harder to stay with you than to be pulled out the door. There were too many hands pulling at him, too much confusion matched against his great strength. Even so, he fought, until one of the guards, the one with the nasally voice you had heard once before, gripped him by the hair.

“You’re only making it worse for your little chew toy,” the man warned.

Your soldier’s shoulders slumped at the other man’s words, and he stopped fighting, allowing himself to be led away. When the door opened you could hear something repeating over speakers in the halls, though you couldn’t understand it. There was much movement happening beyond your door, and it worried you.

The time dragged. When you were alone, you were back in your personal hell, constantly waiting, hoping for his return. As the hours drew on, you grew more and more uneasy. The flurry outside your door seemed to die down, and it grew so quiet that only the sounds of your own breaths were left to fill the air. 

You tried to fill the hours with sleep, but seemed to wake only moments after closing your eyes. You had no way to be sure, with no clock to tell the time and no other way to mark the hours. When you realized that you were hungry and had been for some time, you felt a cold dread settle in the pit of your stomach.

After that, the hours began to blur. At some point the lights went completely out and you screamed in the darkness, only to have a low hum sound as they came back at their dimmed setting. You suspected it was a generator of some sort, but that didn’t do anything to allay your fears. 

You drank from the sink in the small bathroom and tried to remain hopeful, but you found yourself getting weaker and often dizzy as the time went on, until the moment comes that you can’t move from the bed. You keep losing consciousness then, but when you’re able to wake and open your eyes, you stare at the door.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Praying.

The day it finally opens again, you haven’t strength to do more than offer a shaky smile. They were holding guns and shouting, but it was so loud and you felt so weak and confused that it was hard to understand what they were saying. It was only when one of them stepped forward and shouted to the others that you knew for certain you were rescued; you recognized the face of a soldier that had once worked security at your parents’ estate. He must have survived the fracas and returned to his unit.

He swore and said your name, and you tried to sit up.

“No, don’t try and get up kiddo,” the kind soldier said, shaking his head. “It’s alright. We got you, we’ll get a med unit in here. Just stay with us, okay?”

You nodded as best you could, and in moments more soldiers poured in and you were lost to the hustle and bustle of the rapid deployment. They bundled you in blankets and someone started an IV, though you never felt it; you didn’t start to cry until they had you outdoors and you felt the sun on your skin.

You kept trying to talk but your voice wouldn’t come. You wanted them to know about your soldier. You wanted them to know there was someone else who needed saving. By the time you had regained your voice and your senses, you realized that telling them would only put him in danger.

You would never forget him, your soldier. You never could. 

 

Going home was strange. Your family had survived the onslaught so long ago, and thought you dead. They treated you like you were breakable, your sensibilities too delicate for anything so strenuous as going to a corner store on your own. You were skittish, at first, but time in the sunshine and outside of close quarters did you more good than any specialist psychologist or doctor that they sent you to. The doctors seemed to make it a point to run every test they could on you, though the kindly woman who saw to your physical health made it clear that she took confidentiality to heart. If her tests ever revealed the birth control you’d been taking, she never brought it up.

You managed to keep some of the promises you’d made yourself during your confinement. When your family had finally loosened its stranglehold upon you, you began to learn to take care of yourself -- how to fight, how to shoot, how to escape if you needed. You’d make a vow that you’d never be anyone’s captive again, and was one that you intended to keep.

Beyond self defense, there was much more learning to be had. You recognized that you were damaged, that the ordeal had changed you in more ways than one; you knew there must be others, more like you who had lived through such a thing and survived, and they would need help. You’d had your soldier to keep you safe and even; if they needed someone, you could be that for them now.

Years of study and several degrees later, you were considered a leading psychologist and an expert in the study and resolution of so-called Stockholm Syndrome. If nothing else, you helped your patients adapt to a new life once they had been released, one that would never be the same as it had been before they were taken but still had potential to be something great. You had made a name for yourself, working with soldiers returning from long stints as prisoners of war and horrific cases of abuse, children abducted from their families and raised into adulthood by sleazy captors. 

Immersion was always key to your success. You would spend time with your patients, experience their day to day trials and tribulations, teach them to adapt to the new world they had encountered and help them work through the trauma that had been inflicted upon them. You had just finished an eighteen month course of intensive therapy with three teenage sisters who had been married into a cult as children when your name was splashed across some magazine, unbeknownst to you entirely. The article lauded your work and referenced a few journal papers you had written, all the while you lived in seclusion in a small Nevada town with the three young women, helping them to cope with the noise of life outside of their commune.

When you left them, they two youngest had enrolled in a public high school and the oldest, their de facto caregiver, was taking college courses while working in a department store. You suspected, though she had been embarrassed and tried to hide it, that she even had a boyfriend. They still would need regular therapy, but could see someone local and no longer had need for a specialist. You counted it as one of the best recoveries you had seen.

 

You had been back in your Manhattan apartment less than a day when you received the call about a potential new client, and though you had relished the thought of some quiet time at home, the idea that someone else may need your help was enough for you to agree to the meeting.

The details over the phone had been sparse: an army sergeant, a POW with a long confinement, evidence of both torture and mental conditioning. A terrible experience to have gone through, to be sure, but sadly par for the course for that sort of thing. Strange that it was a private client rather than a governmental body requesting your assistance -- you’d worked with the Navy some years ago, regarding some sailors who had been marooned for a time -- but not ultimately surprising. The Veterans Administration, you found, had been sorely lacking in decent care as of late.


	5. Chapter 5

By the reaction of the taxi driver when you gave him the address for the meeting, you felt that you should have been impressed by your new client, but you didn’t have much background. Before Nevada, there had been a near feral child in the Appalachians, and before that, two former inmates of extended solitary confinement who were subject of a prison abuse case. You tended to immerse yourself totally in your work, and though you had vague knowledge of the Stark branding, your own touch with news and popular culture had been relegated to the comings and goings of a tiny desert town for some time.

Mr. Stark certainly felt you should be impressed, and did his best to show it. He insisted on a tour of his building and made a point of introducing you to a Dr. Banner, one of the leading minds of his field, it would seem. The doctor was reserved and friendly, and you made a mental note to figure out how such a retiring man should become seemingly a close friend of the brassy namesake of the building. The tour ended in a large office with floor to ceiling windows, offering a breathtaking look at the city skyline; it was clear your admiration for the view was noticeable by the slight smirk on Mr. Stark’s face.

“Let’s have a drink,” he announced, sauntering over to a well appointed bar in the corner of the room. You sighed and followed, wishing you had worn a pair of flats rather than the heels you typically wore to such meetings; you just hadn’t expected so much damn walking.

“Mr. Stark-” you began.

“Tony,” he interrupted, and not for the first time that day. “Call me Tony.”

Another sigh passed your lips. “Fine. Tony,” you amended. “Much as I appreciate the tour, you’ve yet to really give me any information on why I’m here. Your assistant had mentioned a POW in need of my help, but all you’ve done is talk about yourself for the past two hours.”

He thrust an unwanted drink into your hand, ice cubes clinking against the cut crystal of a clearly expensive glass. You glanced down at it, and shook your head.

“This hardly seems appropriate,” you added. “And it’s a bit early, isn’t it?”

Tony just smiled and toasted you before knocking back his own drink, setting the empty glass on the marble bar top before speaking.

“Didn’t they tell you over the phone?” he asked. “Pretty simple I’d think, given your reputation. We got a former POW, missed out on a lot of years, brain a little scrambled. Occasional disassociative state, needs some hardcore therapy, and you, Doc, come highly recommended.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. There seemed to be something he wasn’t telling you.

“I do have a local office, you know,” you told him, rolling the untouched drink in your hand and listening to the ice continue to clink against the crystal. “All your friend would need to do is make an appointment.”

Tony shook his head. “Not going to cut it,” he replied. “This guy needs some industrial-strength head-shrinking. Live-in. A 24/7 babysitter with a doctorate, you follow? And it wouldn’t hurt to have someone on staff in that capacity for the long-haul.”

You shook your head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” you told him.

“Tony,” he reminded.

You had to smile a little; he certainly was persistent, you had to give him that.

“Tony,” you replied. “If your people had been more clear on the phone, I would have told them that I’m not available for something so long-term at the moment. I’ve only just gotten home after a very long period with my last patients and I really need some time before taking on something quite so stringent again.”

Tony seemed nonplussed. “But you’ll be living here,” he replied, as though that should make all the difference.

You laughed. “I very much appreciate the offer but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline,” you told him. “I could probably recommend a local companion for your friend, if you’d like.”

“Not necessary,” Tony told you. “You can start today. You’ll have the apartment right across from his, we’ve already moved you in.”

You blinked. “What?” you asked, then shook your head. “That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is,” Tony replied, seemingly offended that you doubted him. “JARVIS, please give the good doctor an update on today’s move-in.”

The AI program that Tony had addressed several times during your tour quickly came to his aid.

“The doctor’s belongings have been unpacked and arranged in the quarters parallel to Sergeant Barnes’. The movers have already left the building,” the genteel computer-generated voice announced cordially.

You gaped. “You… you can’t just… do that!” you stammered. “I have a home, and a lease! And a practice! You can’t just kidnap someone’s apartment!”

“Neither you or your apartment have been kidnapped,” Tony told you with a shrug. “You can leave, I just don’t think you’ll…”

“Sir, Captain Rogers is here with Sergeant Barnes. Shall I allow them entry?” JARVIS politely interrupted.

“Sure, of course,” Tony replied. He turned towards you and added, “Believe me, once you meet this guy, you’ll be all over this job. You’re gonna write more case studies on this than you have in your career combined.”

As he spoke, he had put a hand to your shoulder to guide you through the room, directing your attention on the newcomers as the building’s AI caretaker slid open the door. It was on the tip of your tongue to tell Tony off -- billionaire philanthropist or not, you certainly would not be forced into taking any job you weren’t prepared for or desiring to take -- but he spoke so fast and directed you both bodily and in the conversation that you were at a loss.

This supposed ‘meeting’ wasn’t going at all as you had expected and in the back of your mind, you thought it would certainly go down as one of the more interesting -- if not bizarre -- experiences of your life, until the moment solidified itself as extraordinary.

Two men walked through the the newly open door, both tall and broad-shouldered. The first was blonde with clean-cut features that seemed vaguely familiar to you, the way a bit part actor strikes a chord of memory even when you can’t place them. The other, though… the other was unmistakable. 

 

You hadn’t even realized that you still held the glass that Tony had pressed into your hand until it slipped from your fingers and shattered on the floor, the cool liquor splashing against your feet though you barely registered the feeling. It seemed as though the whole world was quietly imploding, and no one seemed to realize it but you.

It was him. It had to be him; there very clearly couldn’t be two of them in the world. The same haunted eyes, the same guarded expression, and the same gleaming metal arm, though only his hand was visible. All of these years later and the press of cool steel against your skin could make you shiver, and it was all his fault.

“You,” you finally managed to choke out. “How…?”

The blonde man read the situation wrong entirely. “Ma’am,” he said, raising one hand in front of himself while reaching back to hold your soldier in place. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be afraid.”

“Afraid?” you echoed, confused. The room seemed so quiet, with sounds traveling in from a long way off to echo in your ears. Of course you weren’t afraid; you could never be afraid. Never.

He was dressed differently. Gone was the tactical gear that had been seared into your memory, replaced instead with a simple pair of jeans and a dark henley. But his face, oh, it was just as you remembered; he hadn’t aged in the many years that had passed and for a moment you’re embarrassed, realizing that you were little more than a girl when he had seen you last. You were older now, lines at the corners of your eyes and maybe even a silver strand or two hiding in your hair. All grown up, after all, but your soldier was ever the same.

If anything, he looked better than the last time you’d set eyes on him.

He stared at you with blue eyes gone wide and shocked, reaching out to his companion and grabbing the other man by the sleeve. He swallowed hard and you watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat before he spoke.

“Real,” he finally said, voice hoarse and barely above a whisper.

“Buck?” the other man questioned, turning to face him, confusion and concern on his features.

“Real,” he repeated, staring at you in disbelief. “Real. Steve, she was real. The girl. She’s real. It’s her!”

“What?!” Steve asked, seemingly as surprised as your soldier when he snapped his gaze back to you. You could see him doing the math in his head, backtracking the years to the age that you must have been, glancing back to your soldier to see if his expression had changed.

“Did I miss something here?” Tony asked, arching an eyebrow.

A warm bubble of laughter escaped your lips, and once you started, you couldn’t stop. It was ludicrous. It was insane. It was impossible. Laughing seemed all that there was left to do.

Tony glanced back and forth between the other men before turning his gaze back to you, then simply shrugged off the oddness of the scene.

“Guess that means she’s taking the job,” he mused.


	6. Chapter 6

They tried to explain it to you, as difficult as it was to wrap your mind around. The evidence was there in front of you, so it couldn’t be denied -- your soldier hadn’t changed, in all the time that had passed. The fact that he remembered you in spite of the fragmentation in his memory meant something, though you weren’t quite sure what it was. It was difficult to keep up with the conversation, much as you kept staring, drifting back into memories you hadn’t touched in ages.

Steve -- or Captain America, as you had realized, inwardly musing that your taxi driver had an action figure of the man on the dashboard of his cab -- seemed hesitant of the idea, but when Tony suggested that your soldier show you to your ‘new’ apartment, you had to agree. You wanted, no, needed to speak with him away from prying eyes.

“This doesn’t mean anything’s changed,” you warn Tony, doing your damnedest to keep your voice from shaking.

He winked and raised a re-filled glass at you. “Sure it doesn’t,” replied.

 

You let your soldier lead the way, down the hallway towards an elevator that opened its doors without need to press a button. He pressed his mechanical hand to the small of your back as if to guide you inside and you could feel the coolness of the metal through the silk of your blouse. You took a few deep breaths to calm yourself, though you weren’t sure if it was the confined space of the elevator, something you’d grown to loathe since your captivity, or just the strangeness of everything that was happening. You may have dreamed, quietly and never shared with anyone, of finding your soldier again, but you could never have imagined it would be like this. 

The elevator went down a few floors before opening again, and your soldier stood back to allow you to exit first. The hallway looked much the same as the one you had left, but he knew the way and gestured for you to follow.

“You’re right across from me,” he said quietly.

“This is… very odd,” you replied, struggling to find the words.

He stopped outside of two doors and gestured towards one of them, raising his voice only slightly to ask, “JARVIS, will you please open the door?”

“Certainly,” the AI replied, and you heard the latch on the door click open. You glanced to your soldier and he nodded, so you turned the handle and stepped inside.

 

“And this is even odder,” you announced with a low exhale of breath. The space was different, of course, the footprint not exactly the same, however your entire apartment -- your furniture, your knickknacks, everything -- had been carried in and arranged almost exactly as it had been in your own building.

“I didn’t know he was going to do this,” your soldier spoke up. “I would have told him not to. Even before I… I saw it was you.”

You turned to look at him then, eyes searching the face that had once been your only solace. He looked healthier, not as pallid as you remember, but there were still the dark circles beneath his brilliant blue eyes. His cheeks were stubbled and his hair, still long, was pulled away from his face and tied back, a few errant strands falling forward. 

He swallowed hard, knowing you were watching him. “Never… never thought I’d see you again,” he said, seemingly stumbling over his words. “Wasn’t sure you were real. They did… they did a lot of things to me, to my head. I thought maybe… but, god… you’re really here aren’t you?” He reached out to touch your face but stopped himself, frowning down at his shoes.

“Buck?” you asked, and he glanced up to meet your eyes. “That’s what your friend called you, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yeah. It’s Bucky, though… I mean, it’s James, but everyone…”

You couldn’t help but smile then, eyes getting a bit damp at the revelation.

“James,” you repeated, and you reached out, mimicking the movement he had made only moments before, but you didn’t stop yourself, and let your fingers brush along his cheek until he met your gaze. “I like ‘James’,” you told him, and laughed a little. “I never knew what to call you, all of this time, I just thought of you as… mine.”

“Mine,” he repeated, and for a moment it seemed he flushed, eyes dropping to the floor again. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “You were so young.”

You understood then that there was shame there, regret. As if you hadn’t reached for him first. As if you hadn’t welcomed every touch, every kiss. As if you hadn’t held onto him so tightly, to keep the both of you from losing your grip with reality.

You reached out again, waiting for him to meet your gaze.

“Old enough,” you reminded, and when the words were spoken, it was as if the floodgates had opened.

 

You were struck with such familiarity as your back hit the wall that it nearly took your breath away. The way he touched you, the growl in his throat when his lips met yours, even the way your body reacted, leaning into his touch… the years may have dimmed the memory but the desperation in his kiss brought it all back. When you gasped this time, when he set his mouth to your throat, you had more than just soft coos and nonsense sounds pass your lips. 

“James!” you softly cried, hands reaching to tangle in his hair, the tie there already falling loose. He met your gasp with a moan of his own, crowding even closer against you 

“Say it again,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against your own and shuddering with the effort to slow down. “Please say it again.”

You lean in close to his ear and whisper it again.

“James,” you say, nuzzling against him. “My soldier. My James,” you whisper, and graze your teeth against his earlobe, remembering the way it would draw a shiver down his spine and feeling his reaction come on cue.

You felt the pressure of his fingertips against your thighs as his hands drifted up beneath the sensile black skirt you had chosen to wear that day. For the briefest moment you were struck with embarrassment, even fear, that you would be rejected; the time had changed you, made you older, while he had stayed the same. Your body had changed, filling out to what would have been before you were half-starved in captivity and losing the sinewy feel of youth, but you saw quickly that such changes meant nothing to your soldier.

“So gorgeous,” he whispered against your lips. “So beautiful. Used to drive me crazy, wantin’ so bad to touch you. Minute I saw you, darlin’, minute I saw you again, wanted you so bad…”

 

You’d never been with anyone like him since, someone who could lift you up and carry you off; the exhilaration of knowing that you were completely at his mercy and get still feeling so perfectly safe and protected was intoxicating, an addiction that had never truly gone away. You’d drift back to the memories time and again over the years, when you were alone and needed to relieve a little tension; you tell him as much and his answering groan brings a small smirk to your lips.

You moved together through the funhouse-mirror version of your apartment, your soldier knowing the way better than you could. You were wrapped up in his arms, your heart pounding in your chest; you knew on some level that this was madness, what you were doing, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

Your soldier that you had missed for so long, that you had loved, was back in your arms again, and that was all that could possibly matter to you.

 

He laid you out on your bed and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it aside as he had done what little clothing you were so long ago. You couldn’t stop yourself from reaching up to touch him, running your hands across his strong chest, remembering the way his skin would taste beneath your lips and suddenly craving it. You leaned up, sucking and biting an array of impressive marks into his skin while he made short work of your clothes. Dimly you were away of the popping of buttons from your blouse and the tearing of soft fabric.

He mumbled a soft apology but you only leaned up to kiss his lips, thinking wildly that it didn’t matter at all, not now that your entire life had been moved into the apartment and you could easily find something else to wear if needed. What did matter, though, was that your soldier was wearing entirely too much clothing, and you reached for the button on his jeans while kicking off those miserable heels you had been wearing. You quickly moved to push the jeans down his backside, taking with them the black briefs he wore and laughing softly when his mechanical arm ripped the seam up the side of your skirt and whisked it away from beneath you.

He made short work of the gauzy material of your bra and you had a wild moment of embarrassment, realizing it was not your best and that the tight material had left red grooves on your skin. Your soldier didn’t care at all, soothing the marks with soft lips and swipes of his tongue that had you shivering even before he hooked his thumbs into waistband of your cotton panties and slid them down past your thighs. 

You let slip a contented sigh as he kissed his way down your body; your soldier remembered every place to stop, even place to nibble and lick and mark your skin to make you shiver and gasp beneath him. He paused when he reached your hip, running his fingers over the tattoo there: a white gardenia blossom.

He whispered your name against your inked skin and you felt a shudder sweep through him, even as you ran his fingers through his hair.

“James,” you said softly. “James, please. I need you.”

You didn’t have to ask again; he moved quickly up your body, your mouths meeting in a sudden crush as he settled himself between your thighs. Your name was on his lips when he pressed inside of you and your back arched involuntarily, letting out a long held groan that you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding back. It felt like relief, this welcome intrusion of your soldier’s body upon yours; it felt like coming home.

Neither of you could last long, not as tightly wound and pent-up you both felt upon meeting again after so long. Your soldier rode you through a shuddering climax, his name chanted on your lips like a mantra.

 

When it was over and you curled against him, huddled together in your bed in your apartment that wasn’t really yours, there were more questions in your mind than answers but you were content to lay there with his arm around you, his fingers tracing patterns on your back.

“This… I didn’t expect,” he told you honestly. 

You laughed gently and kissed him below his ear. “I didn’t see my day going here, either,” you confessed, and then sighed. “James? I can’t… I can’t be your therapist.”

He nodded, and you felt him thread his fingers through your own. “I understand.”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t,” you tried to tell explain. “But… we have a history.”

“I understand,” your soldier repeated, then sighed and pulled you a little closer. “I get why you wouldn’t get involved. I’m sure Tony gave you a rundown on what I’m like, what I’ve… what I’ve done.”

“You saved me,” you told him, cutting him off before he could go further. “You think I don’t know what you did? I know that they… those people, they did things to you. Made you different. And the way it wore down, the way they used me to keep you in line. But you always came back. You had so many chances at freedom and you always came back for me. That’s who you are, James. That’s all that matters.”

Your words didn’t seem to reassure him and, remembering how fast he used to recover, you tested to theory and found that time hadn’t changed very much about him at all. You had just straddled his waist when you were interrupted.

“Pardon the intrusion,” JARVIS’ voice spoke suddenly, startling you enough that your balance shifted and you had to brace yourself with hands on either side of your soldier’s shoulders. 

“What is it?” he asked, addressing the AI with a roll of his eyes, so characteristic of your last days together.

“Mr. Stark has asked that I relay to the doctor that his offer still stands to live and work in the tower, even should she not come on to work with you specifically, Sergeant Barnes,” Jarvis related.

“Tell him I accept,” you call back. “But that we need our privacy for a little longer.”

“Maybe a lot longer,” your soldier suggested, and when he rolled you over onto your back, you couldn’t help but agree.


End file.
